So today, we’re making Shakshouka.

Yeah, I’m back with my first entry in a while. I may be back this week. Or next.

Or next year. WHO KNOWS? The world is on fire.

Anyway. . .

What the fuck is Shakshouka?

Well, basically it’s a dish with eggs poached in a flavorful, thick, tomato-based sauce and it’s goddamn delicious.

There are variations of the sauce depending on who’s making it. The eggs are almost always poached, with exception to the Turkish variation of this dish, Menemen, where they scramble the egg.

There are arguments over which is the original, which is the best…because of course there are. The Jews apparently like to make theirs with leftover tomato stew that was part of the Sabbath dinner (I never got this growing up, and I feel like writing a letter of complaint to the management), but basically it’s a dish with Middle Eastern and North African origins but with regional variations here and there.

This is the version I like.

Is it right? Who cares, it’s delicious.


Shakshouka

Ingredients

•             1 large onions, diced

•             1 sweet red (or orange or yellow – just not a fucking green one) bell pepper 

•             6 cloves garlic (minced)

•             2 tsp harissa paste (see note at bottom)

•             1 tsp paprika

•             1 ½ tsp cumin

•             ½ tsp turmeric

•             28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

•             1 T honey

•             1 T red wine vinegar

•             1 T fish sauce (optional if wanting to keep it vegetarian and/or you’re scared of fish sauce).

•             1 T Kosher salt

•             ½ tsp fresh ground pepper

•             8 large eggs

•             Chopped parsley and/or cilantro (about a half cup total)

•             Plain Greek yogurt (for serving, I dunno…a T or three per serving…also optional)

•             Olive oil (just grab the bottle)

Directions:

Heat about 2 T olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally until they begin to brown, and turn heat down to medium. Continue cooking until caramelized to your liking – I usually spend about 20 minutes on this because the longer you do it, the more flavor you’re going to get from them – don’t fuck this up, I hate when people try to rush this part.

Add the bell peppers and garlic and cook down for another 5 minutes until everything is softened. Pay attention and don’t burn your fucking garlic.

Add the harissa paste (again, see note at bottom), cumin, paprika, and turmeric to the pot and mix your onion mixture, cooking for about a minute and ensuring that everything is mixed well together. Add the crushed tomatoes, honey, red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper and let it cook for about a half hour or so, stirring occasionally, until the tomato sauce has thickened up considerably. Taste as you go, if you’re not getting big flavors, keep simmering a while longer. You can’t rush a good sauce.

At this point, when I make the sauce ahead of time for the next morning, I turn off the heat, let it cool to almost room temperature, and then place in the fridge overnight.

The next morning (or, you know…NOW if you’re doing this all at once), bring your sauce to a simmer.

With your cooking utensil of choice, make 4-6 divots/pits/dents/whatever word you want to use here in the sauce, making sure that the bottom of the pot isn’t showing. Carefully crack an egg into each hole. It is easiest to do this by cracking an egg into a small bowl and then pouring it CAREFULLY into the divot in the sauce, because when you break a yolk into the sauce, you cry. I may be projecting.

Cover your pan with a lid (or if you can’t find the lid because where the fuck do they keep going, use a baking sheet) and walk away for a couple minutes. Get yourself a drink or something, but come right back, dude, you’re cooking eggs. Check on them from time to time and once they start to look MOSTLY done…they’re probably done. You want your egg yolks to be soft – unless you’re a monster like my friends Janelle and Resa. I probably won’t make this for them. They can go to Turkey.

Remove the skillet from the oven, sprinkle the top with parsley and/or cilantro (I don’t want to hear it if you have the birth defect that makes you hate cilantro, just skip it, that’s why I said and/or) and serve it right away with bread of your choice – I like to thin slice a baguette, drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt and then zap it under the broil setting in the oven until just golden brown. Crispy bread to dip into the sauce and egg yolks is just fuckin nice.

Serve with plain Greek yogurt as a garnish. Unless you are dairy-phobic, then like…don’t. But it’s good. Some folks like sour cream, but since I live in a country where I have not found a sour cream to my liking, it’s Greek yogurt for me, Bob.

NOTE AT THE END: You might not have harissa paste. I didn’t, but I had red curry paste and I used that. Please know that if you’re trying to keep this vegetarian, red curry paste often has shrimp paste in it. Another paste that will bring great flavor is Gochujang, which is a Korean chili paste – and that’s free of dead creatures.

ALSO: There’s no wrong time to eat this. It’s often a breakfast, but you eat it whenever you want, I’m not your real mom.

ALSO: You can toss feta or goat cheese into this bad boy as well. That’s tasty but I haven’t found myself missing it as this sauce packs a PUNCH of flavor. I WAS going to use goat cheese this morning, but I don’t know what the fuck happened to it and the dogs didn’t fess up. Again…didn’t miss it (but seriously, where the fuck did it go…).

Bone Ape Tit.